Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, sitting Congress MP Suresh Kalmadi has every reason to raise a toast as NCP chief Sharad Pawar has promised full support to any Congress candidate fielded from Pune constituency. “NCP will extend all its support to the Congress candidate in the Pune Lok Sabha polls,” Pawar told reporters when asked about the changing political equations in the city. He was speaking after addressing a rally of farmers in Shirur.

The NCP chief said he was not involved in the formation of Pune pattern, an alliance of NCP with the Shiv Sena and BJP, and said alliances at the local level are merely adjustments. “It is up to the local leadership to decide on the alliance in civic bodies,” he said. “The Congress as well as NCP have alliance with various political parties at the local level, but there would not be any reflection of it in the elections at higher level.”

Pawar’s remarks came against the backdrop of cracks developing in the Pune pattern on Tuesday when the Opposition joined hands with the ruling NCP to rob the Sena of its right to table the 2009-10 budget of the Pune Municipal Corporation.

After coming to power in 2007, the NCP had joined hands with the Sena and the BJP. But on Tuesday, it joined hands with the Congress to deprive standing committee chairman Shyam Deshpande, Sena leader in the civic body, of the privilege of preparing the 2009-10 budget. The powers have now been vested with NCP’s Anil Bhosale. Sena corporators were left fuming and seeking clarifications from NCP leaders on the existence of Pune pattern.

The NCP-BJP relations had come under strain last year after workers of the two parties were involved in a violent standoff. This was after senior party leaders criticised each other during the elections for the state legislative council.

Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, during his first visit to the city after taking over the reins of the Cabinet, had urged the NCP to call off the “unholy alliance” with the Sena-BJP in the civic body.

The strained relations between the BJP and the Sena on the issue of extending support to Pawar as the prime ministerial candidate and the Karnataka-Maharashtra border dispute have already added to the troubles of the party contesting the Pune Lok Sabha seat, say political experts.